Thursday, 14 May 2015

The ConHome article (which Lola linked to recently to make a different point) says that there is a significant geographical overlap between 'former mining areas' and 'areas returning a Labour MP' at last week's elections.

Ho hum.

More to the point, there is, and always has been, a large overlap between 'relatively densely built urban areas' and 'areas with a Labour MP' i.e. Manchester/Merseyside; West/South Yorkshire; Tyneside; and central/inner London.

It just so happens that most towns grew where they did because coal was needed to power industry during the Industrial Revolution; the landless peasants (90% of the population) moved to these areas during the Industrial Revolution; these areas then became towns and cities; and for whatever reason, people in these areas tend to vote Labour to this day, while the Tories are the party for rural areas and outer suburbs.

The only reason that London is where it is, is because that's as far upriver as the Romans could get with their boats i.e. it has always been the centre of government and a major centre of trade. For slightly different historical reasons, about half the population are tenants (private or social), and again, these people will tend to vote Labour, even though London is about as far from a coalfield as you can get.

And all of this is not UK specific, as a general rule and in most democracies, people living in towns tend to vote more left wing/liberal and people in the countryside vote right wing/authoritarian.

L, the Cornish after one of the collapses of the tin-mining industry there would be a better example. It was said in the C19th that anywhere you went in the world, if you found a hole, there'd be a Cornishman at the bottom of it.